Bioclimatic Characterization Relating to Temperature and Subsequent Future Scenarios of Vine Growing across the Apulia Region in Southern Italy
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript submitted by Gentilesco et al. describes the predicted climate change in the Apulia region and its impact on viticulture by 2100. Even the analysis is focused to a limited geographic area, the descriptions in the submitted manuscripts should be of interest to a wide range of readers.
Minor comments
Line 49; abbreviations DOCG, DOC and IGT should be explained.
Line 83; ‘green-house gas emissions (GHG)’ should be ‘green-house gas (GHG) emissions’.
Author Response
We considered the indications of the reviewer reported below:
Line 49; abbreviations DOCG, DOC and IGT should be explained.
Line 83; ‘green-house gas emissions (GHG)’ should be ‘green-house gas (GHG) emissions’.
Reviewer 2 Report
Agriculture 2217284
The above paper examines the effect of global warming on grape growing in the east of Italy. Different scenarios are explored, including an increase in global temperature of 4.5o or 8.5oC. It was concluded that there will be a significant shift in the areas suitable for commercial production.
Overall, the work appears sound and the analysis adequate. However, I found the manuscript difficult to interpret at times. There was a large body of data presented which distracted from the key findings of the study. Many of the paragraphs are excessively long and this also distracts from the work.
I recommend that the paper be rejected, and a new manuscript be submitted for further review. The following suggestions are provided to improve the manuscript.
The authors should settle on the SSP2-4.5 scenario. An increase in global temperatures of 8.5oC is not likely under current strategies to reduce CO2 emissions.
Figure 1 could be deleted or at least the right-hand part of the map. I couldn’t read the map at all.
Reduce the size of the very long paragraphs.
Too much of the data is repeated in the text of the ‘Results. The reader can check the details in the Tables and Figures. Only present the key data/results in the text.
The ‘Results’ and ‘Discussion’ should be combined.
The ‘Conclusion’ should be reduced to 4-5 sentences highlighting the key findings of the study.
What will be the impact of drought on the crop under future climate change scenarios?
In the analyses, use data combined from 1961 to 2022. The temperatures in the two separate periods seem to be similar.
Figure 4 refers to WI not HI.
I wasn’t quite sure which analysis (GST, HI or WI) provided the best prediction of future growing areas for the crop.
Can the authors compare their results with the results of analyses in other growing areas such as Spain or California?
I look forward to seeing the revised manuscript.
Author Response
Reviewer 2
The above paper examines the effect of global warming on grape growing in the east of Italy. Different scenarios are explored, including an increase in global temperature of 4.5o or 8.5oC. It was concluded that there will be a significant shift in the areas suitable for commercial production.
Overall, the work appears sound and the analysis adequate. However, I found the manuscript difficult to interpret at times. There was a large body of data presented which distracted from the key findings of the study. Many of the paragraphs are excessively long and this also distracts from the work.
I recommend that the paper be rejected, and a new manuscript be submitted for further review. The following suggestions are provided to improve the manuscript.
The authors should settle on the SSP2-4.5 scenario. An increase in global temperatures of 8.5oC is not likely under current strategies to reduce CO2 emissions.
4.5 (SSP2-4.5) and 8.5 (SSP5-8.5) are not referred to a presumable temperature rise, but they refer to the expected level of radiative forcing GHG emissions measured in terms of W/m2 by in the year 2100 (i.e. SSP5 considers a radiative forcing GHG emissions of 8.5 W/m2). In particular in SSP5-8.5 the expected temperature increase is around 5°C and not 8.5°C
More information available at:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/cmip6-the-next-generation-of-climate-models-explained/
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Full_Report.pdf
https://unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/energy/se/pdfs/CSE/PATHWAYS/2019/ws_Consult_14_15.May.2019/supp_doc/SSP2_Overview.pdf
Figure 1 could be deleted or at least the right-hand part of the map. I couldn’t read the map at all.
We elaborated a new Fig
Reduce the size of the very long paragraphs.
Too much of the data is repeated in the text of the ‘Results. The reader can check the details in the Tables and Figures. Only present the key data/results in the text.
Some results redundant with tables were omitted where possible
The ‘Results’ and ‘Discussion’ should be combined.
We prefer to keep the separate chapters for a more fluent reading of the paper
The ‘Conclusion’ should be reduced to 4-5 sentences highlighting the key findings of the study.
Reduced
What will be the impact of drought on the crop under future climate change scenarios?
The following paragraph was included
“The research focused on bioclimatic indices based on temperature. Indeed, adequate water supply is fundamental for high-quality winegrape, in particular in Mediterranean area, where harvest during the hotter summer days under drought stress will cause in fu-ture lower crop yield and quality of grapes. Moreover, water stress combined with high temperatures could increase evapotranspiration, with negative impacts on flow-er-clustering development, berry set and photosynthesis [37]. Piña-Rey et al [44] showed a negative precipitation trend in Spain in the future projections, with consequences on phe-nology and quality of grapes. An intensification of water stress conditions predicted by climate change projections during ripening is expected particularly in the Iberian Penin-sula and Italy. However, Cavazos et al. [35] reported precipitation to be highly variable year by year with larger uncertainties due to overestimation of mean annual precipitation. Beside this, changes in rainfall patterns will not be uniform and the occurrence of extreme events is hardly predictable. On the base of these consideration, Future Scenarios analysis based on temperature appears more reliable and accurate, even because ensemble GCM are normally considered to predict climate change, but large intermodel differences on rainfall are reported in literature [45]
In the analyses, use data combined from 1961 to 2022. The temperatures in the two separate periods seem to be similar.
Differences in terms of % distribution of bioclimatic classes emerged, therefore we preferred to keep the two time windows separately
Figure 4 refers to WI not HI.
Corrected
I wasn’t quite sure which analysis (GST, HI or WI) provided the best prediction of future growing areas for the crop.
We did not want to compare indices among them, therefore, as in other cases reported in literature we used these indices simultaneously with the goal to give a broader and more complete forecasting tools package.
Can the authors compare their results with the results of analyses in other growing areas such as Spain or California?
In the text the following sentences are reported:
“GST Historical values confirmed other studies [2, 34], who revealed similar ranges in analogous latitudes in the context of the Mediterranean basin climate”, referred to Extremadura and Greece
“HI has been widely used as an effective bioclimatic index for viticultural zoning [39] and it often indicated the loss of suitableness to viticulture in certain zones of the Mediterranean basin like southern Iberia and Italy [40]” referred to European area
“Conversely, the milder and “Likely” scenario SSP2-4.5 reported Apulian areas with alti-tudes higher than 300 - 400 m a.s.l. still suitable to viticulture by the end of the century. These results are in line with other studies [2, 34, 42], who reported a general unsuitability of the investigated Mediterranean areas to viticulture under the worst SSP5-8.5 by the end of the 21th century, while under the milder SSP2-4.5 certain zones could be classified as Very Warm and therefore still performant for quality wine productions.” Referred to Spain, Greece and other Italian areas
We think that our data were sufficiently compared with other viticultural areas in order to confirm the goodness of the results achieved.
I look forward to seeing the revised manuscript.
Reviewer 3 Report
Based on three bioclimatic indices relating to temperature (GST, HI and WI) across specific years (1961-1990 and 1991-2022) from the Apulia region in Southern Italy, the authors successfully and significantly analysed two different Shared Socioeconomic Patterns (SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5) with Global Climate Models. Specifically, the geostatistical interpolation analysis using regression-kriging (RK) enabled detailed projections of spatial distributions of these three indices individually within the entire Apulia region across four time periods (2021-2040; 2041-2060; 2061-2080; 2081-2100). These results are significant for development of the future wine industry across the Apulia region. Indeed, the research method adopted in this study provides an ideal model for similar projects, especially those focusing on climate variations.
However, the English expressing in several sentences needs refining.
Line 47: It would be better to change “Apulia region in the Southern Italy, exhibit the typical ....” into “The Apulia region in Southern Italy, exhibit a typical ......”.
Line 49: Spell in full any acronyms when first used - see “4 DOCG, 28 DOC and 6IGT wines.”
Since all the three bioclimatic indices analysed were related to temperature, the title of this paper “Bioclimatic Characterization and Future Scenarios of Vine Growing in Apulia Region” should probably more specifically mention temperature in relation to bioclimatic characterization. A suggested title could be: “Bioclimatic Characterization Relating to Temperature and Subsequent Future Scenarios of Vine Growing across the Apulia Region in Southern Italy”
Author Response
Reviewer 3
Based on three bioclimatic indices relating to temperature (GST, HI and WI) across specific years (1961-1990 and 1991-2022) from the Apulia region in Southern Italy, the authors successfully and significantly analysed two different Shared Socioeconomic Patterns (SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5) with Global Climate Models. Specifically, the geostatistical interpolation analysis using regression-kriging (RK) enabled detailed projections of spatial distributions of these three indices individually within the entire Apulia region across four time periods (2021-2040; 2041-2060; 2061-2080; 2081-2100). These results are significant for development of the future wine industry across the Apulia region. Indeed, the research method adopted in this study provides an ideal model for similar projects, especially those focusing on climate variations.
However, the English expressing in several sentences needs refining.
Line 47: It would be better to change “Apulia region in the Southern Italy, exhibit the typical ....” into “The Apulia region in Southern Italy, exhibit a typical ......”.
Line 49: Spell in full any acronyms when first used - see “4 DOCG, 28 DOC and 6IGT wines.”
Both suggests were considered, English was extensively rechecked
Since all the three bioclimatic indices analysed were related to temperature, the title of this paper “Bioclimatic Characterization and Future Scenarios of Vine Growing in Apulia Region” should probably more specifically mention temperature in relation to bioclimatic characterization. A suggested title could be: “Bioclimatic Characterization Relating to Temperature and Subsequent Future Scenarios of Vine Growing across the Apulia Region in Southern Italy”
The new title suggested was considered in the new version of the manuscript
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Horticulturae 2249321
Many thanks to the authors for the revision. My apologies for confusing the SSP5-8.8 scenario. The revised paper should be suitable for publication in the Journal.
